A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Pull of the Stars

Pull of the Stars by Jack Kaiser is a role playing game supplement published by Schwalb Entertainment for use with Shadow of the Demon Lord. The supplement is part of the Lands in Shadow series that detail parts of the official Urth setting, although in this case the area detailed is not on Urth but is other planets in the same system.

This is a ten page PDF that is available from RPGNow for $2.49 but was purchased at the reduced price of $1.72 during a sale. Half of the first page is an illustration and around a quarter is the Credits; the rest of the supplement is content.

The introductory paragraphs mentions that the peoples of Urth are not alone as there are demons from the Void, devils in Hell and faeries in hidden kingdoms, but in addition there are other worlds drifting through the sky. Mortals venturing to other worlds, or even just astronomers observing them, often fall prey to madness.

The Aether is the emptiness between the worlds. The distances require magic beyond the mightiest wizards, instead requiring the use of portals to travel between planets. There are not many portals in existence, all closely guarded secrets. Simply travelling through a portal is a risk.

Next is Otherworldly Hazards. Worlds other than Urth have their own hazards; different gravity and different atmospheres being the primary ones. A new piece of equipment, an aethersuit, and a new spell, aether skin, help protect the traveller from adverse conditions. As most magic requires speaking, simply casting spells can be problematic. in unbreathable atmospheres, to impossible, where there is no or only trace atmosphere. There is also a new d20 table of interesting things.

Heavenly and Hellish Bodies describes various major bodies in the Urth system. This starts with the Sun, which is essentially unvisitable. There are some standard rocky bodies, a couple of gas giants, one of which is very close to the Sun, two worlds joined by a stony tether, a world destroyed by the Demon Lord, Tarterus, the prison moon of Urth and the Blind Eye, a failed star that is more than that as it possesses an immense hatred, and perhaps even intelligence. There is also mention of six other planets orbiting the Sun, although no portals have been found to them. Many of the planets have moons, or ring systems, and some have an effect on Urth itself.

Mooncalves are the result of pregnancies exposed to unusual influences from the planets and other astronomical objects. They are a modification that can be applied to living, mortal creatures, or elementals.

Otherworldly Features is a d20 table of celestial features to encounter and finally Adventure Ideas has one idea for each of Starting, Novice, Expert and Master levels.

Pull of the Stars in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and, although it is not that long, these would have been appreciated. Navigation is poor. The text maintains a full colour two column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are also several custom colour illustrations. Presentation is very good.

As with all entries in the Lands in Shadow series, this supplement really only provides an overview of the places described. In fact, it’s an even briefer overview than the rest. Whilst other entries in the series tend to concentrate on a fairly small region, this one gives brief overviews of nine different celestial bodies, many of which are large and many more have their own moons. The total area covered is therefore vast, so none of it has great details. A GM will need to do a lot of fleshing out of anywhere before characters can travel to it, because there is no other information on the destinations. However, with portals being rare and guarded, and the only real way of travelling, a GM can ensure that characters only go to places the GM wants – although some of those are potentially vast.

As well as the four adventure hooks at the end of the supplement, there are a whole host of ideas scattered within the text. This supplement has some definitely interesting ideas in it, but it requires much more development to use. Pull of the Stars can be found by clicking here.